WASHINGTON, November 9. /TASS/. The United States has no intentions of pushing Ukraine into negotiations with Russia, if the Kiev government is not ready, US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl told the Washington-based Defense Writers Group, where TASS is a participant.
"Our position has not been to push the Ukrainians into talks before they are ready, but rather to put themselves in a position such that when and if they are ready, they're doing so from a position of strength," he said.
When asked whether the possible slowdown of combat operations during the winter season was presenting an additional opportunity for Russia and Ukraine not just to regroup their forces but also to engage in diplomacy, the Pentagon official replied: "I don't think the scenarios you paint are mutually exclusive. I suspect it'll be some combination of the two [variants]."
In his opinion, the worsening weather would make it hard "to do large-scale offensives," and hostilities in Ukraine were thus expected to slow down.
"As it relates to what opportunity this presents for diplomacy - that's really ultimately for the Russians and the Ukrainians to decide," Kahl added.
On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that, in response to a request from the Donbass republics, he made a decision to carry out a special military operation in Ukraine. He underscored that Moscow does not plan to occupy Ukrainian territories, instead planning to demilitarize and denazify the country. In response, the West started introducing sweeping sanctions against Russia and shipping weapons and military vehicles to Kiev already worth tens of billions of dollars at this point.
A number of Western political figures acknowledged that this was effectively an economic war against Russia. On March 16, Putin said the Western sanctions policy against Moscow had all hallmarks of aggression, adding that the policy of deterrence of Russia has been the long-term strategy of the West.